I’m a movie fiend. When I watch a movie, I very thirstily & feverishly deconstruct its building blocks – Casting, Screen Play, Background Score, Dialog Delivery, Costumes et al. I’m passionately in love with movies. When I was a kid, I yearned to make movies. I used to stand before a mirror & emote, observing what angles worked & what didn’t. I would sit behind the clump of Frangipani trees in the yard & clinically dissect passers-by. Their body language, diction, their clothes. In retrospect, I must have unnerved & freaked people out with my pitiless ogling.

I never entered Show Business. Instead, I became a Software Engineer. I’m not exactly heart-broken, because I’m a philanderer: Film Making is only 1 of my many loves. In turn, I’ve desperately wanted to be an Architect. Cryptographer. Musician. Physicist. Writer. Chef. Astronaut. And curiously enough, Fighter Pilot. In my first year in the Engineering school, I fell inexorably in love with Computers – it had me from “Hello World”.

Those who can’t make movies, watch them. I sate myself by reading about the craft & by devouring truckloads of movies. A good movie is a story on an acid trip – Vivid images hitherto unseen carve themselves on the brains of the viewers, like a hallucination. A bad movie is like a wet dog – it stinks, its messy, it can be shaken off easily & it never makes a lasting impression. I’m very particular about the kind of movies I watch – After all, you devote 2 to 3 hours of your time to watch a movie. Its an immersive medium, where you have to stay interested. I only watch movies that I think are good, whose Rotten Tomatoes rating is high or whose story-line I think will hit the high notes. The rest are simply not worth my time.

I used to watch TCM (Turner Classic Movies) & AMC (American Movie Classics) regularly when we lived in the US. In India though, good movie channels that carry Subtitles are rare. We rent videos from Cinema Paradiso, a store that has an eclectic collection. I hit the mother-lode this weekend – I laid my hands on a Sinhala movie – Pavuru Valalu, with English subtitles.

Now, About Pavuru Valalu

Loosely translated, “The Walls Within” – is set in the 1960s Galle in Sri Lanka. It has a simple story-line – Lovers separated during WW-II meet after a gap of 25 years. The lady is married, has 2 daughters & her husband has abandoned her. When the movie unwinds, the director’s sympathy for the lead pair’s predicament comes thru with lyrical perfection. Without being judgmental, the movie poignantly captures the society recoiling in horror at this state of affairs.

The protagonists Victor & Violet are essayed admirably al dente by Tony Ranasinghe & Nita Fernando. None of the actors spout reams of dialog – their silences, little gestures & eyes convey much more than mere words could. Luckily for us, the Casting Director gave Miss Sri Lankas & Mister Colombos a pass. Instead, actors have been chosen primarily for their prowess & their suitability for the role. The young women in the movie have wide hips or big butts. Young men don’t flash six-pack Abs. Instead of fixating on their physique, the actors have focused on effectively conveying their turmoil thru nuanced expressions & dialog delivery. It is sheer poetry in celluloid.

The movie will haunt me – because it is so raw, so natural. The entire movie is shot in a typical middle class dwelling, with peeling plaster & green algae in the outer walls. Actors wear rumpled clothes when they are at home – not designer threads. And the women are not painted like street-walkers waiting for their Johns. Not a single actor resorts to histrionic pyro-techniques – for they know that over-acting & bad-acting are synonyms.

Pavuru Valalu is a great movie – an outstanding achievement by director Prasanna Vithanage & his team.

My SOS to Fellini

I asked for Fellini’s ghost, but Ingmar Bergman’s or Akira Kurosawa’s ghosts would do equally fine.

For after watching the movie, a paroxysm of rage hit me. A small country, Sri Lanka, with a population of 20 Million people is able to make a neat movie on a shoe-string budget. It makes a handful of mainstream, yet critically acclaimed movies that receive rave reviews from all corners of the world. We are a nation of 1.2 Billion yokels & counting. Yet, the number of decent movies we make every year won’t run into double digits.

When was the last time you saw an Indian movie, where the lead pair is 50 & 45 years old? We are fixated with youth. I don’t understand why. At least 50% of the people in India are 30+. Oh for movies where the theme isn’t romance, revenge, family feuds or a mix-up between 2 people who look alike. Didn’t Shakespeare do that in The Comedy of Errors Circa 1589 already?

Our movies revolve around love, love & more love. Unfortunately, love-making in Indian movies involves booty shaking, heaving bosoms & shirtless men panting like dogs at their women. When Violet’s daughter Lily sees her beau Ranjith – her face glows softly. We can imagine her adrenaline rush easily – Incidentally, we are not idiots & we appreciate subtlety. A fact lost on most Indian film makers. They just can’t resist a song & dance sequence to show-case “tender” love at this juncture. They would have Lily & Ranjith cavorting in Switzerland or New Zealand, writhing like snakes in heat.

When will we stop making movies with people dancing around the trees? For that matter, when will we make movies without songs? Must every single movie made in India be an escapist fantasy? Is reality so cumbersome, that we want to edit it out of our art? I’m not saying we don’t make good movies ever. We make too few good movies amid a zillion very bad ones.

We don’t have to make ponderous, pretentious movies where we try to show the world how bright we are. I once watched a movie by Israeli director Amos Gitai. Nuh-uh. Not my cup of tea. I was dazed, confused & totally disinterested after 30 minutes. The movie opens with a guy walking from 1 end of the street to another – and they show this for 10 yawn-worthy minutes. Maybe I’m just a dummy that doesn’t understand Gitai’s art, but sproing! – the next scene has 2 nude people making violent love on a canvas full of wet paint.You call it art, I call it boooooring 😐

Bollywood AKA National Shame. Bollywood, my ass. Where there is more money than talent. Where an over-emoting Shah Rukh Khan thinks he can step into the large shoes of the talented Amitabh Bachchan. Where the much feted Aishwarya Rai – the most visible face of Indian cinema – is one of its worst actors ever. To my utter misery, she gets plum assignments that were once done with elan by the scintillating Meena Kumari & the effervescent Savitri Ganesan. I lose my appetite every time that happens.

And the film-makers in India send 1 clunker after another for the Academy Awards & wait with bated breath for an Oscar. Good grief. For all their shameless plagiarism of Hollywood, their knowledge of World Cinema is very poor.

In the meantime, I wait for the release of the Malayalam epic Pazhassi Raja later this year, from Director Hariharan. With screenplay by M.T.Vasudevan Nair, Music by Ilayaraja and with veteran actors Mammooty, Sarath Kumar, Manoj K Jayan & Thilakan, it can only be good.

Comments

What did the poet Dharmi say to Lord Shiva in the movie “Thiru Vilayadal”? He said – I can only ask questions, not answer them 🙂 So yes, while I would love to make movies or documentaries, I don’t have any practical know-how on how the industry works.

Our film-makers try to create something that will satisfy everyone. That’s not necessary. They should target a demographic & try to make movies for them. And perhaps make more movies in English or with English sub-titles. That way, they can target the whole nation.

I agree that some new directors trying to create different fare. We need more small-budget movies & cool documentaries. Only then will the industry survive.

I hate pretentious movies. One should never forget the cardinal rule of movie-making: Cinema is to entertain the viewer. Ergo, it should interest the viewer. Showing some guy shave his armpits for 15 minutes is not art.

In fact, that’s the cardinal rule of writing too. I wish someone would tell Stephen Hawking that. Guy is a genius, but has no clue how to communicate his thoughts. But that’s a different post altogether.

Excellent and just in time too!!. I was outraged after seeing Dasavathram, which falls into a separate category I would term as IOI – Insulting ones intelligence, and wanted to do a post on such movies. And to boot, it is portrayed as some innovative concept not attempted before – what a bunch of crock. As you have mentioned, the makeup is atrocious, close-ups were an eye sore and a lot of the dialogues are unintelligible and to top it off, there seems to be some message thrown in about religion – gives me the shudders.

Few tamil movies I like – Kutti (ending is very depressing though), Veedu and Andha Naal. And on the Hindi side, I would have to throw in Sujatha, Madhumati, Sholay etc. Malayalam – Vanaprastham with the inimitable Mohanlal. Speaking of Malayalam movies, I remember attempting to watch Elipathayam during my younger days on Doordarshan and was totally lost. I am sure if I watch it now, I might even understand it and come to appreciate it is a great movie. But the only good thing it did to me at that time was induce me into a nice afternoon slumber!!

You watched Dasavatharam? Please accept my sympathies. Music by Himesh Reshamiyya?! And the 10 “looks” of Kamal – most of them like wooden masks – fugly! African Witch Doctors use better looking masks in their rituals. I wonder if Kamal’s head is screwed on right. If all he hears is adulation, how will he correct his madness?

I’m really sorry to say that these days I avoid Kamal’s new movies like the Ebola virus.

Kutti was indeed a good movie – very depressing though. I liked the Hindi movies in your list. But, Vyjayanthi Mala was very irritating in Madhumati. She was too cutesy, talking ditzily like a little girl. Very aggravating. She looked phenomenal though, as always.

Elipathayam?! OMG, I tried watching it many years back & it freaked me out. Art films can be a bit slow, but it should still move about, exhibit some life. It shouldn’t be dead. Adoor Gopalakrishnan scares me. I know the cognoscenti will behead me & drink my blood if I say that. Since Elipathayam is his Magnum Opus. But hey – we say it like we see it. Perhaps I should steel myself & watch it again. Who knows, I might not get tremors when I see it now.

“Rajammey, Rajammey, Paasu” – The two of you watched that!! I like that movie Elipathayam simply because of the many times I have quoted that movie for a ‘slo….w movie’. I still remember the scenes from the movie after 20+ years. It left such lasting impact on me 🙂

I think in general, our movie producers and directors think that their audience is denser than they actually are. How else can you explain them trying to spell out even the simplest things for us. It’s all the more surprising because, we preach and pride ourselves (!!!) as a culture that’s doesn’t openly express feelings – as a community we scorn and stare at public display of affection (including hugs). However, when we make movies we are compelled to express every bit of nuance openly, including running around trees 🙂 It’s definitely a medium to forget reality, I think.

In India, movie makers seem to have lost the concept that movies can be aspirational, inspirational and entertaining, but has to be in the realm of possibility – catching a bullet with the hero’s teeth, a single person stopping a running jet plane with a rope etc – unless you are making “The matrix” every time. 🙁 The worse part is, the general public has very little expectation from movies and don’t expect them to be in the realm of possibility as well.

I wish we would take inspiration from good movies made from other countries (read, inspiration and not plagiarize) and make great movies.

I think we had to atone for our sins & that’s why we watched “Elipathayam”. It left a lasting impact on me too! I can’t even handle David Lynch – as in “Mulholland Drive”. Having to sit thru Adoor was such an ordeal. Really now, I should watch his other movies before judging him. Poor fella.

We are a culture that doesn’t express its feelings openly??! That’s news to me. We bawl our eyes out, we touch each other (not the opposite sex) all the time, we express our joy so openly, we are uber-sentimentalists, we express our love openly (as long as it isn’t romantic love – love for parents, friends & film idols ok). We have taboos on what to express openly & what should be best forgotten. Anger & Confrontation – NO. Anything Sexual – NONONO. Everything else – Yes, of course.

So, its not surprising that sex & violence – the taboo emotions – are reserved for the movies.

I think movies are terrible because the film-makers want a one-size fits-all approach. If only they started making movies by demographic, things might improve. Our tolerance is the stuff legends are made of 😉 So, the “A” audience tolerates nonsense & idiocy expressly added for the “C” audience. In due course of time, the “A” audience has dumbed down to the level of the “C” audience. That’s what I think has happened in India.

How else will you explain corny masala movies running packed houses on the 1st few weeks, in multiplexes in metros?

Oops…I think i created this whole new thread for Malayalam art movie. 🙂 Yes, it is slow but has different dimension of movie, in fact, Adoor is one the gem of Indian movie industry. I agree with Ganesh that may be i was too young to judge Malayalam art movies at that time. But I like “two in one” movies art+entertainment . Since the movie industry “not doing good” nowadays, it is good to have art at same time some entertainment. We have to find a creative way of “mixing these two” to give right cocktail to audience.

One more point is, I like to see more movies or documentary from Indian directors like Michael Moore here in US.

Subba – Too many of us have been affected personally by “Elipathayam”. We had good intentions in our hearts – “Here is a celebrated film-maker, let’s watch his movie”. How naive of us 🙁

Seriously now, Adoor is a genius, but we believe that art need not be boring. We don’t mind appreciating him, but we are unable to stay awake long enough when his movie is on 😀 I plan to watch 1 more movie before condemning him. Maybe in a few years, I’ll have enough brains to understand his art. Who knows.

Yeah, we need short films, small budget films & documentaries. I was lucky enough to watch an Indian short film today, screened exclusively for me by the film-maker 🙂 It was cool.

I wish mainstream film-makers cared that much about my opinion. I’ll give them an earful. But sadly, they don’t know me from Adam (Eve?) & they don’t give a damn anyway.

You are right! I take that back about showing emotions in public. Like you said, some that should be taboo are not and some that should not be are! Indeed, we are weird.

“C Audience” – I am not sure anyone believes that you can stop a bullet in it’s tracks by catching it in your teeth. What’s worse, if our ‘C audience’ did believe that after seeing the movie, guess what, they are going to be left with a gaping hole on the back of their head 🙁 I think people flock to movies because they want entertainment and don’t realize that they can get better choices if only the movie makers spend 5 more seconds thinking before truly shooting from the hip.

It’s not that we don’t have enough social causes to cover through movies (like Blood Diamond) – child labor, pedophile, sex trade, lack of civic sense – you name it, we have it. Our movie makers don’t want to spend a moment to think about these. I am not talking about our Hero fighting against the biggest politician and throwing the government over – though that’s probably as far from reality as it can get.

We need good thinking movie makers who want to be original and make a difference. We don’t need ones that dole out the same ‘man after woman’ or ‘woman after man’ stories day in and day out. I am tired of it!

NK – Yeah, the bullet sequence in Padayappa is too dumb even for the C audience. Here’s a thought – and I’m thinking out loud here – maybe we have an “F” audience in India? 😛 For them, a gaping hole in the back of their head makes no difference. They can go on living the same ah, productive lives that they led before.

From time to time, we do see movies based on social causes – Kutti, Mandi etc. But, we don’t have enough of them. For movies to be based on social causes, film-makers need civic sense. That’s in short-supply in India – film-makers & film-goers alike.

Man Seeking Woman, Woman Seeking Man. Yep, tired of them. I’d like to see movies on Man Seeking Man, Woman Seeking Woman. Taken without taking any sides – either pro-gay or anti-gay. Movies where gays are not fodder for comedy tracks, but have a role to play. I just want the elephant in the room to be recognized. “Oh, there are no gays in India” – Yeah, right dumb-ass.

Although the movie “My Brother Nikhil” was a step in the right direction. And the TV Program “Ippadikku Rose” – where the anchor is a trans-gendered woman – give me some hope.

NK – Of course they came up with “Memento”. They called it “Ghajini”. Only they copied it & pretended they were brilliant. That doesn’t count??!!

And the “Butterfly Effect” – Kamal mentions that in Dasavatharam. Which is a copy of “Babel”.

Send us the DVD of any movie that impresses you. And we’ll make a movie with that theme, significantly water it down, dumb it down, add Man Seeking Woman Who Actually Seeks Another Man Who Avoids Another Woman Seeking Him, Item Number, Comedy Track & a Villain. And send it to the Oscars. A movie from Montenegro (Population 700,000) will win the award. We’ll promptly copy that movie using the procedure outlined above.

great discussion guys. Can we produce movies that will make us shake in our boots, sit in awe of it after many years – yes we can? But only 2 of the ‘woods in india can do that and done that – malayalam and bengali. Over the years they have produced some phenomenal movies. We have not figured out how to replicate that and also make money from them which forces us to go down the formula Priya laid out in the comment above.

Good point Sukumar. I think we might have even discussed this in BITS. How come Kerala and West Bengal have so man similarities – be it politics, literature, art, movies or music. I believe it has something to do with their fish diet 🙂

Ganesh & Sukumar – This is what I think. Both Kerala & Bengal have a single dominant, populous, highly educated communities – Nairs & Kayasthas, respectively. Both these communities contributed to art, philosophy, literature, administration etc. They had money & power.

In those days, educated people were attracted to socialism & communism, as long as they had moderate means. Plus, when art, literature etc are nurtured by educated communities – not just a handful of educated elite – naturally, it reaches its zenith.

Interestingly enough, the Babu culture & related gentrification never caught on in Kerala. Perhaps that’s got to do with the relative affluence of people in the 2 states.

Priya .. Have read all your posts and must say each time i was like “why didn’t i think about this kinda post earlier? Why didn’t i blogged about it?” Moreover i always had the same views as yours. It happened even this time when the post began. I thought it was a humorous take on films overall. But not for long. As it moved to Bollywood, my views distanced yours.

First of all, i haven’t seen the movie “Pavuru Valalu” and i have already added it to my list. But about bollywood, i feel we always make haste in taking a decision. I mean its true that there are various good movies churned out from outside Bollywood and they are amazing. But i feel we actually get to see the nice movies which indeed have hit the audiences there. Take for example Hollywood. Zillions of movies are made there too. How many of them are good?

I agree the good:bad ratio might be a bit high in India. But i don’t think that number would be significant enough to rule Bollywood out of the canvas. I feel 90s was the worst era for us and it has ended with the advent of out-of-box thinking directors. These days various nice movies are indeed being made and after watching “Johny Gaddar”, Bheja Fry” and various other, am optimistically looking forward for, lets say, the experimental younger era 🙂

No country’s film field can churn out good movies all the time. That includes Hollywood. However, I believe we need to look at a few metrics carefully.

What is the % of mediocre movies made? In Indian cinema, this % is awfully high.

What is the % of good & world class movies made? These numbers are pathetically low in Indian cinema. For a movie to be world class, it should be historically accurate. A movie like “Lagaan” is not honest: What is shown is not a true depiction of India in that day & age. Its a feel-good movie, where cricket & Jingoism are mixed to give a highly entertaining movie. Entertainers fall really short of Good & World Class movies. Though they are better than most clunkers churned out in India.

When you see these metrics together – % of bad movies & % of good & World class movies – Indian Cinema is not really in reckoning. We lack the will, the competence, awareness & vision needed to make world class movies.

And “Lagaan” was sent for the Oscars. How can we then consider Indian movies on par with the other movie industries? Even small countries make solid movies – such as “Osama” from Afghanistan.

I never said we make no good movies. We don’t make enough of them. “Bheja Fry” is a blatant copy (or remake? I don’t know) of a French movie. I can’t give credit to the film-maker for that. We need to think originally.

Some film-makers are trying to make good movies now – which is nice. I hope the trend continues. But, the quality of most other films has continued to fall. No comparison between the old & the new Devdas, for e.g. The same Dostoevsky story was made as Iyarkai in Tamil a few years back – an ok movie by all accounts. And as Saawariya, a coiled bum-snake this year. So you see sliding standards, in a matter of a few years.

And we get to know of most English language movies. Not just the ones that were critically acclaimed. And I believe we get to see a fair share of all kinds of English movies these days in India. So your point that we only see the ones that are good – isn’t valid when it comes to English language movies.

Agreed Priya. I completely agree with you that we get to see almost each English movie today. What i said was in respect to other languages’ movies. Hollywood was chipped in just to emphasize the point that numerous bad movies are made there too. Take for example almost all the once loved slasher movies made these days.

And that’s where am coming to. The mentality of Indian movie goers has been of one paying to watch a dream on canvas. This has been the case right from the beginning. And that’s what movie makers encashed. Maximum movies are made to suit the average movie goers taste. And what fate the real good movies see? Am not sure if the “Critically acclaimed” tag makes any difference to the movie makers when it hardly reaches the very audiences it is made for. No wonder each “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna” is bludgeoned worldwide and “Aamir” remains unknown. No wonder the very director that gave “Swami” makes “money hain to honey hain” next.

I feel its just been recently, with Multiplex audiences ready to cherish something new, that movie makers are looking for experiments. And we have indeed seen some original movies like “Khosla Ka Ghosla”, “Dharam”, “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi”, “Swami” and many others. Its just the matter of time when more such movies would be made. That day a movie like “Shwaas” won’t find it hard just to earn publicity at the Oscars. Fingers crossed 🙂

Amit – As I said before, bad movies are made everywhere. You need to look at the metrics I mentioned in my prior comment. There’s no denying the fact that we make a heavy % of bad movies & a nominal % of good & world class movies. Hollywood isn’t anywhere as bad as us.

There’s a difference between “Critically Acclaimed” movies (a la Satyajit Ray) & Good movies. In the end, movie making is a business & its the film-maker’s responsibility to market it well. Marketing Indie movies in Hollywood isn’t an easy job either. So, this is not a problem that’s unique to Indian movies.

There’s a new twist to the tale here. As long as we make ridiculous escapist fantasies & stupid movies like “Love Story 2050”, even our good movies will find it difficult to win an Oscar (or any other note-worthy award). Its the mindset. The world is laughing at Bollywood & film-makers like Karan Johar. Their mindset will prevent them from taking good, original Indian movies seriously.

Well , while discussing about art movies in kerala…one shouldnt forget film-makers like Bharathan , padmarajan and legendry M.T vasudevan nair..Well i admire Adoor gopalakrishnan, but not all movies of him. They made some movies which had perfect balance between art and commercial elements… Infact one would get confused and wonder as what kind of gender should be assigned to their movies…..

I didn’t watch “Villu”. I didn’t think it was worth my time 😉 Vijay is certainly not an actor I would think of, in connection with Fellini, Goddard or Kurosawa 😉 His movies are mass entertainers & I generally avoid such movies. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Sharvin – About “Varanam Ayiram”, I found the story-line riddled with flaws & the critics had totally panned the movie. I don’t plan on watching it. In general, I find Indian movies below par. Only a handful of movies made every year in India are worth watching. And that’s the crux of my post.